The third chapter suggests that The Spectator’s characters set important precedents of diversion, originality and realism for the caricature talk that constituted realist character in the critical recognition and writing of the Romantic novel. The second part of the chapter shows how anti-caricature rhetoric became conventionalised in late eighteenth-century essays that sought to explain and promote the appeal of Addison and Steele’s character ’Sir Roger De Coverley’.

The Introduction begins by outlining the generative tension of the early modern public sphere: debate and defamation, free speech and false news, went hand in hand. Libels were often vicious and violent. Yet they were also essential to England’s emerging media ecosystem. Drawing from public sphere theory, the first main section conceptualizes the viral circulation of libels across speech, manuscript, print, and performance; and it makes the case that theater – urban and provincial, amateur and professional alike – was central to their multimedia careers. The next section follows the intertwined semantic, cultural, and legal histories of libel from the 1550s to the early 1600s. In the process, it identifies a clear and enduring paradigm of libel: as anonymous, extralegal accusation. The third section returns to theater history, tracing the same logic to the core of efforts to regulate the stage. After surveying the relevant scholarship on dramatic censorship, it pins the theater’s proximity to libeling on the vexed question of audience interpretation. The Introduction finally locates the late Elizabethan scenes of libel in the context of the anxious years of the long 1590s (1588–1603).

As stated earlier in this Part of the guide, it can be helpful to determine the defined standard, or benchmark, for the author’s perspective, action or statement, whether that is for a fictional character or plot, or in a non-fiction work (see Identifying the explanatory framework within a text). Once you have clarified that and the author’s intention, the next step is to consider whether there are any potential legal consequences.

As an editor, you should have a basic understanding of copyright, libel, defamation and related legislation, sufficient to be able to identify when a legal reading is needed. However, you should not be expected to provide that legal reading, regardless of how familiar you are with the legislation.

Chapter 1 examines the imperial silencing regime in Hong Kong from the early colonial years to the turn of the nineteenth century, a regime I call ‘punitive censorship’. The chapter details how for the first fifty years of British rule in Hong Kong following its inception in 1841, criminal prosecutions under libel law were wielded by the colonial government as the major tool against newspaper editors who criticised government officials and/or policies. Libel prosecutions aimed not only to suppress criticism of the colonial government but also to manage Britain’s geopolitical interests in East Asia, particularly its relationship with China. In addition to suppressing the Hong Kong press through judicial proceedings, the colony’s censorship regime also featured legislative measures that, for example, forbade the import of anti-colonial materials into Hong Kong

Chapter 7 draws together the arguments presented in the preceding chapters, to underline the way that traditions around bringing disputes to court interacted with a written bill of rights to make courts the fora for disputes over expression in Massachusetts, as it dealt with the challenges to authority posed by challengers to religious and social orthodoxy and the gradual unfolding of its own version of democracy. Though no less concerned with individual reputation, Nova Scotians’ struggles over the jurisdiction of political institutions and greater distance from reform movements shaped disputes over expression and the way that defenses to libel claims were conceived. In these two kindred places, legal cultures, constitutional understandings, publishing practices and the quirks of personality interacted with sociopolitical pressures to shape libel law in general and the defenses of truth and privilege in particular, matters vital to individuals and to the institutions of democracy.

Chapter 6 examines civil disputes, most of them unreported, in which individuals – white and generally of middling status – took each other to court over reputational claims. These cases demonstrate the centrality of courts as fora for disputes in Massachusetts, specifically in the Boston and Worcester areas, whereas Nova Scotia saw substantial regional variation, associated with religion, language, indigeneity and lawyer availability, from Pictou to Yarmouth to Halifax. Nova Scotia had far fewer defamation cases both absolutely and relative to population. Massachusetts courts more frequently awarded windfalls, and the costs to a plaintiff of bringing a suit and then dropping it were higher in Nova Scotia. As well, in Massachusetts the writ of attachment was undoubtedly attractive to plaintiffs who wanted to make life difficult for a defendant before trial. This writ was not available for such purposes in Nova Scotia. Women in Massachusetts, far more than in Nova Scotia, turned to courts for redress, and courts were receptive to their claims, especially to those of self-supporting single women.

Defamation can have a long-term effect – a ‘propensity to percolate through underground channels and contaminate hidden springs’ of C’s reputation (per Slipper v BBC1). It is a technically difficult tort, in which the defences available to D assume equal, if not greater, prominence in the judgments as do the elements of the cause of action itself. As a common law tort, it is an ‘ancient construct’ (per Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd2). The Defamation Act 2013, which took effect on 1 January 2014, overruled aspects of the common law, but preserved other aspects, adding to the complexity of the tort. Wherever the publication complained of began in 2013 and continues into 2014, the court is now likely to have to consider the position both at common law and under statute (per Donovan v Gibbons3).

the jurisdictional rules for defamation claims

the jurisdictional rules for defamation claims

The last two chapters of the book focus on the growing recognition that public opinion was not necessarily a political problem, but could be cultivated and harnessed by governments themselves, sometimes for mutual benefit. During the forty years before the outbreak of revolution in France, a remarkable range of major publications pushed public debate and political controversy in several different directions. Historians no longer assume the Enlightenment was anything like a cohesive programme. That conclusion is confirmed by the huge diversity of new publications on a number of key issues including censorship itself, political representation, reform of the judiciary and of taxation, economic improvement, poor relief and many other issues affecting civic society. The American Revolution created greater political awareness in Europe and pitted both the French and the British governments against critics from within. Newspapers, pamphlets, detailed reform proposals and even publication of state-sponsored information ensured that the depth and analytical power of many new texts greatly enhanced the levels of public debate in parts of Europe.